As I wandered around Lisbon with my best friend, an idea sprung into my mind for a story about a woman who goes missing on a weekend away. If you’d told me then that the book would one day wind up being a best-seller, as well as a movie on Netflix, and that Leighton Meister would be playing the character inspired partly by my best friend, I’d have laughed, and then eaten another custard tart.
I’m a novelist and a screenwriter too, so I always write my books with a view to adapting them for television or for features, and The Weekend Away was no different. As I walked around Lisbon, I was mentally imagining what the movie version would look like and where I would set what scenes. Ironically, due to budget and covid reasons, we ended up shooting the movie in Croatia, but the atmosphere is very much the same and Split is a fantastic alternative to Lisbon on screen.
The Weekend Away very naturally fit into a feature structure with a clear three acts, an inciting incident kicking things off (her friend’s disappearance), a heroine who finds herself in a strange world, a mentor figure who helps her navigate it, and a classic ‘all is lost’ moment towards the end.
Once I had written the book, I wrote out a synopsis for the movie version. It didn’t differentiate wildly from the book, though I did alter the ending slightly, wanting to end the film on a more definitive note than the book in order to give the audience more satisfaction.
While I started out as a novelist, I’ve now worked in Hollywood for six years, in TV and film, as a writer and a producer. That experience - working with networks, studios, directors and actors - and also the experience of being on set, dealing with issues as they arise while filming, and working with budgets, crews, actors and stuntmen, has been invaluable in helping me better understand how to adapt a book into a movie, not just from a creative point of view, but also a logistical one.
My film agents shopped The Weekend Away to Netflix. The low budget independent department were interested and so I pitched the outline of the movie on Zoom to the executives. This was at the very beginning of the covid outbreak and Hollywood was just moving to online meetings. They loved the pitch and immediately commissioned a script. I set about writing it, already feeling confident in the structure and able to visualize all the scenes already on screen.
The process was fairly simple and very fast. Netflix loved my first draft and greenlit the movie off of it. As with most scripts though, by the time it comes to shooting, you’ve rewritten it twenty times or more.
Unlike with books, scripts are much more collaborative. Feature writers are very often replaced at each draft stage with a new writer. Most movies end up with several writers taking credit. I was lucky to remain the sole writer on this project and worked very closely with the director, Kim Farrant, as well as the execs to shape the script and to adapt it based on locations and the budget.
Netflix also wanted me to change the nationality of the main characters, making the lead American, though keeping her best friend, Kate, English. I was thrilled when Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl) came on board to play Beth, the main character. She is a fantastic actress and embodies the role. Ziad Bakri, a Palestinian actor, who plays a taxi driver who helps Beth in her search for her missing friend, also looks like he’s stepped out of the pages of the book. I’d seen him in the French series The Bureau and had been a huge fan, so was very excited when his name appeared on the casting list.
Watching the final cut with my daughter a few days ago, I found myself on the edge of my seat during several scenes, which considering the fact I’ve seen the movie a dozen times during the editing process and had written the scenes, felt like a good sign.
It’s always nerve-wracking to put your work into the world, even more so with a feature that will be shown on the biggest streamer in the world, so I’m nervously awaiting its premiere in March.
In the meantime, I’m onto adapting my next book as a feature!
The Weekend Away will be out on Netflix March 3rd.
The Weekend Away by Sarah Alderson (HarperCollins) Out Now
Miles from home. Trust no one. Suspect everyone. Orla and Kate have been best friends forever. Together they've faced it all - be it Orla's struggles as a new mother or Kate's messy divorce. And whatever else happens in their lives, they can always look forward to their annual weekend away. This year, they're off to Lisbon: the perfect flat, the perfect view, the perfect itinerary. And what better way to kick things off in style than with the perfect night out? But when Orla wakes up the next morning, Kate is gone. Brushed off by the police and with only a fuzzy memory of the night's events, Orla is her friend's only hope. As she frantically retraces their steps, Orla makes a series of shattering discoveries that threaten everything she holds dear. Because while Lisbon holds the secret of what happened that night, the truth may lie closer to home...
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